GOTM #12 *Spoilers* Thread

[Phillip_martin]

After a late start this month I have just caught up on this thread.

Firstly I have noticed a large amount of new players this month so welcome to you all.

Originally posted by jpowers
I've played twice now, and couldn't complete the Great Library either time - it's harder than I thought to get Leaders...

Originally posted by Greg Loader
PS, I restarted again after missing the Great Library by a couple of turns, so I won’t be submitting this game...

I understand the desire for the GL but why (unless these are OCC – One City Challenge games) would this would prevent you from playing on. I missed out on the GL which frustrated the hell out of me as I was intending on 0% science/build army strategy. Oh well there goes my fastest conquest medal I altered my plan filled in my empire with more cities (2-3 tile placement) and continued on. I also was the sole broker of contact with the Chinese which at the right time allowed me to trade for all the early techs I was missing.

As with the whole culture flipping issue, it is these thing which keep the game interesting. Give the builders a break - if you pursue a military only strategy then expect a culturally stronger civ to “steal “ your cities and take theirs back.

Originally posted by col
I was going for the highest score defeat this game...

And you didn’t invite me to the challenge

I am holding off doing the Philibuster awards for GOTM 11 until those missing games have been included

Originally posted by Iver-P
IS THERE ANYTHING I CAN DO...

Keep participating in the GOTM and maybe join an easy division in the Tournament. My early non-CivFanatics games sucked big time (some would say that my current games….). Your in the right place.

One of best tips I got for a starting strategy was to get that Granary built in your early cities. The effect on your settler production cannot be overstated. It is a hard step to take as you always want to build one more spearman, scout, etc.

 

[Dominix]

Oh man, finally finished it up after all the interruptions (have had a very busy month). This is my first monarch game, but I think I've been handling Regent pretty well by myself so I didn't think this would be too much of a jump. Anyways, my report isn't all that interesting. I first built four cities, two of which blocked off the Chinese. Then I proceded to build up a horseman army, and took out the Indians. Managed to get a leader from that escapade, so made an army consisting of two horseman and one impi. After a small period of time, I continued on with the Babylonians. Unfortunately my armies were too stretched out and I brokered peace after taking their capitol (think I got a tech, pretty good). Ironically, I don't think my army ever saw any defensive action. In fact my impis never had to defend ever, except against barbarians. Took out the chinese a little later once I got cavalry. Like everyone else, it was a quick mop up (like literally three turns). The Babylonians almost died out, two cities survived which I protected. The French got into a war with the Japanese, and at that time Persia had a MPP with Japan, so it was a 2v1 affair. Alas, the French got totally beat up, despite my efforts to save them (gave them Replacable Parts and my only rubber). By the time peace was made, they were pretty useless as a trading partner.

I dunno if my reasoning is totally flawed, but I noticed that since my impis never saw any action, and that I never built any wonders which would trigger a GA, I thought that maybe I would purposely trigger my GA right when I switched into the Modern Age. This was of course done by attacking the remaining two bab cities, which by then only had spearman. So I triggered my GA, got Computers for research lab, then tried to get the most expensive techs I could. In the end I decided for Computers, Ecology, Synthetic Fibers, Rocketry and Space Flight. All research labs were done by then, and so after my GA I still could get each tech within 4. Eventually got space victory, and way ahead of the rest. I didn't really pay attention to the other civs. Japan and Persia were in a war, and Japan were left with about 4 cities before peace was made. Persia obviously was the 2nd best civ, but I think they were still researching Mass Production by the time I launched.

 

[Jove]

Arrr, my ancient archers lacked true grit, and my first assault against India was thwarted. Dang. I'm thinking 5 archers is the minimum to guarantee a victory in an early war, but with such conservative play can one win the early conquest medal? I dunno.
I tried a different plan this time. My first worker just joined Zimbabwe right away, and I was building scouts at 1 per 2 turns. Maybe 4 was overkill, but I did snap up a lot of tech, and even a settler near Babylon. My 'attack everyone' strategy was also an anti-tech strategy- I was hoping to roll over everybody before they got pikemen. Only France got them, and they did stop my yellow tide for awhile. I really wanted to win before 700, but I wasn't really that close. However, I've been reading Cartrouche Bee's analyses, and I think I'll show some improvement by this time next month. I'm really curious to see the results in the conquest category-I never play that way, it'll be fun to see how I stack up!

 

[cracker]

Just an update so no one will think I might have personally died in this one.

In a simple word:

Mooo!

Still have 150 turns to go, Damn this is slow. Wonder how many modern armor I can build before the whole thing blows up.

 

[Jove]

Arrr, I saw some complaining about the Impi's, and I gotta share my fun with them. They were a big help knocking out the French in my endgame. I had a lot of cities in Persia, and set them all to Impi while my knights from the homeland caught up. No GL until the middle of the final war with the French by the way. Impis are cheap, and I just sent them into France on tile-burning missions. No civ likes a bunch of Impi running amok in their territory. They draw enemy fire, sometimes they take out a longbowman or even a knight, and enough of them ultimately deny the resources. If the bottom is falling out of a civ's production and offense while you're gathering your forces on the front, it softens them up and is tons of fun. Too bad about the Impi mortality rate though

 

[Cartouche Bee]

Originally posted by cracker
Just an update so no one will think I might have personally died in this one.

In a simple word:

Mooo!

Still have 150 turns to go, Damn this is slow. Wonder how many modern armor I can build before the whole thing blows up.

FYI, you don't score points for armor.

[tip] When things get really under control you can [Shift][Enter] to just end a turn. Saves cycling through units if you don't have to.

 

[nullspace]

Wirth the Zulu, it seems like the obvious choice is to go for a conquest win, but I decided to be different and and won by single-city culture. I got a bit lucky in the beginning, the second hut I popped game me a settler. Zimbabwe never built a single settler (it was too busy on wonders), so that that settler-from-a hut was responsible for my whole civilization, except for Zimbabwe.

I went to war with horsemen and impis in order to get leaders to feed to my capitol. This got my golden age early, which allowed me to build the Oracle, Great Library, and Hanging Gardens. I would've like the Pyramids, too, but barring a very lucky, very early leader, that wasn't going to happen. I didn't get my first leader till after the Hanging Gardens were built, so I made him into a one horseman army (later, I put in two knights) to get a win and built the heroic epic.

From then on, I fought continuous wars against the Indian, Babylonians, Chinese, and Persians. I was more interested in fighting for leaders than acquiring territory, but I eventually covered the Indian and Babylonian territory. I was well rewarded, too: I got about 9 leaders which is way more than I have ever gotten before. Zimbabwe was just starting on the genetics wonders when it surpassed the 20,000 culture mark.

 

[cracker]

Originally posted by Cartouche Bee



FYI, you don't score points for armor.

Yup, I know cash, units, techs, and improvements don't increase score.

I'm just going to see if I can cover every square of land with an Abrams just to break up the monotony. I already built all the possible armies I could build and have them standing in a field like Boy Scouts.

I am running out of barb farming land so getting one or two MA promoted to elite each turn will come to an end soon; just because of over crowding. I think I have over 100 elite modern armor already.

My cash surplus is finally starting to trim back a bit just because my army is getting so huge.

I may run out of land and have to build some boats so I can write my name in the ocean.

 

[Serg]

Finally ended up my GOTM12. While I was attacking the last French city I lose 15 battles (horsemens against 1 pikemen and 2 spearmens). France even got the GL but hadn't time use it. As usually I win by conquest (300AD), though in this GOTM it isn't the best decision.

 

[Vincent]

I didn't think I'd have time to play this GOTM as I've been busy with the Tournament. Decided to give it a go over the weekend and started on Saturday just at the same time it dawned on me that I was coming down with a cold (turns out to be Flu).

Because I needed to finish quickly and not have it drag out like GOTM11 did for me and that I had done a successful Horsemen/Knight conquest in the second Tournament game I decided to try the same here.

So for a few thousand years I was at war, first with Horsemen and then with Knights. I got bogged down a bit with the Babylonians and had a few culture flips, even losing the Workshop (or was it the Art of War?) I built in Babylon for a turn. The Japanese were a bit easier to finish off. After which I cranked up science to 80% to get Metallurgy and then Military Tradition, upgraded 60+ Knights in one turn at the choke point before I ran out of money! The Persians fell surprisingly quickly against Cavalry with Musketmen as defence. won my first monarch game and got my highest score every! I think I should play more often with the Flu! I didn't even think that there might have been another (large) island where I would need ships to win the game, again must have been the Flu disrupting my thought processes.

Sorry if this post is incomprehensible, it's the Flu (did I mention I have the Flu ? )

Vincent.

 

[MSGT John Drew]

Sorry Yndy but Deity-level games really don't sit well with some GOTM players (including me). I really can't envision myself playing Deity at any point in the future.

So please, if you don't mind, don't be going giving Matrix & Co. any ideas about Deity GOTMs and all. I would really hate it if I can't participate in my favorite pasttime.

Originally posted by Yndy
BlueWire,

I didn't mean to say it as threat, i'm only advocating my opinion, i don't have a say in how gotm is designed, but i hope that my comments would make the ones designing the games consider higher difficulty. If they do, i'll feel better, if they don't, i'll get a little bored playing and maybe not at all.
I strongly encourage you to play in the future and maybe higher difficulty levels too ( my first losses at emperor and many of my deity losses where fun for me).

Now which AI civ did you all found to be most threatening in this GOTM?

I've seen some saying Persia but in my case it was Indian and then France.

 

[cracker]

Drew,

I'll add my two cents on the Diety game issue because I think I am one of those players that needs to play diety level more.

I find Diety level to be just obnoxious because the single cost advantage factor is applied to every factor equally. The fact that this cost factor is applied to wonders is particularly disruptive of the game play mechanics because it means that the game is very one dimensional in the two early ages.

If you start in a position with grassland and a river you get to choose one great wonder that you can build if you use every trick in the book. If you get a free early settler you might get a shot at two great wonders. That's it.

The outcome of teh game is more dominated by the randomness of the start position and the results of the early random number generator than it is by the real skills of the player.

If the game controls set different cost factors for wonders, units, growth, tech, and improvements (note this is not a complex programming concept) then diety level would be far more enjoyable and still a challenge if the cost factors were adjusted to provide a balance gameplay experience.

As it is, the best and most enjoyable gameplay experiences can probably be found at Emperor with some specific objectives for the human player that go beyond just winning the game.

 

[Kemal]

I already completed my game some time ago but I would just like to add something in this deity or not discussion.

Deity level indeed has a lot to do with luck, as it is perfectly logical to assume that when say 140 persons are playing a deity GotM, about 5-10% will probably have the bad luck that they'll be attacked in the very early stages of the games. Now a lot of things that can go wrong in a game can be repaired by applying the skills you've mastered in civ, there is just no defense against a stack of (for example) German archers and warriors that come and attack you before 2500 BC.

Even though this means that some players will have their game decided by the throw of a die (AI attacked or not attacked you early on), I still think that every once in a while there should be a Deity GotM, mostly because it puts players in a completely different position for a large part of the game (if not the whole), since you'll be lagging in power and science and you'll need to be on your best to survive, let alone win.
This is different for every other level, even emperor, where most people are able to take control of the game and submit a win (looking at the results of gotm9).

I originally loathed deity because it was so grossly unfair to the human player, but I gave it some tries to see how bad it was, considering that there might be a future GotM on deity level (I just missed gotm7). It is, of course, very bad but like Yndy said most of these games were lots of fun to play, even those lost (quite a few, especially early on) and you'll be surprised how much new tricks you pick up trying to survive when playing Deity, and how bad the AI plays, especially considering the advantages it gets,when in the later stages of the game.

So I say yes, let's have a gotm on deity, but keep long intervals between them as they might not be ideal for a competition like the Gotm, that's purely for testing one's skills on the game.

 

[Jove]

Arrr, mateys, I'd welcome another Deity GOTM.

 

[flexo]

Another GOTM ... Don't think I have ever managed to get so many great leaders ... I got more this time than in all my previous 11 GOTM:s ... The game went great to about the 1700 ad .. When I always fall into a slump for some odd reason.

I managed to prolong my golden age by simply not building any Impis ... Don't like to accidentally trigger early since that equals no money and crap tech everyone else gets in notime anyway.

I started sending out a few scouts, scoring a few techs and a settler, maps and crap ... only one warrior. Went for horseback riding first, then the great library. Unfortunalty the bastardly little yellow jappers managed to build it only a few turns before I would have completed it. So I had to drag myself up from a serious tech disadvantage. So I started to mass produce horsemen. China went down first so I only had to fight on one front. The a 1000 years of war followed (not all the time but most of the time). Managed to keep Babylon and Persia at war most of the time in one way or the other. Don't like to face neither of them. They usually grow to powerful. So I played them against eachother. India was next. Took some of babylon and some of the jap. Then I stopped to bring order to my land. Fat chanse of that since I had been a bastard playing the other civs of each other so peace was short. Horsemen had become knights had become cavalry. I held my position for an entire age until the tank when I once again started to seriously roll north. I had hoped for a conquest since all others appeard to be to distant options. Had not even thought about domination. I kept to many enemy cities so I accidentally triggered a domination victory. I only had about 8 more cities to take for complete conquest. Oops ...

I only had to build a few wonders. All the rest where hurried by all the great leaders I got. Only think I built two or three wonders, the rest where all hurried.

Well fun game, even thou I rarely play pangeea games.

 

[denyd]

With the tournament games taking up most of my free time, I didn't think I'd be playing this game (not really a Zulu fan, Impis not a very fun unit - give speed to a defensive unit is not an improvement). Then I caught a break...I got laid off last Friday and found lots of free time suddenly... my time is now split between job hunting, babysitting my 9 month old and Civ.

Enough about me, this game went somewhat similar to what I read about from everyone else, mostly built military. Swordsmen to take out the Chinese and Indians, then Knights for Babs. Persia got stomped by the French, leaving a 3-way dance to the finish. Managed to get to the saltpeter in the central hills before the Japanese, so they became the primary target. Had to get them to attack first or I'd be stuck in a two front war (not a good thing). It took a while, but my cavalry finally wiped out the last Japanese city, but they didn't die!!! A settler was wandering around on a boat somewhere and me with no navy!!

The settler finally landed and the Japanese went to visit the honorable ancestors, leaving me and Joan in the endgame. I piled up 60 cavalry and 40 cannons on the joining penisula and was about to attack when I finish the TOE with a GL and suddenly to my surprise, the game ended with a domination victory!! I guess I was had the land, but didn't have enough population until that turn finished.

So it's back to job hunting (anybody looking for a UniData programmer or a HP Unix Systems Admin) and on to tournament game 4 and wait for next months game (I'm hoping for a large flat continent for my Aztec Jags to run rampant on, not a bunch of little islands, either a monarch or emperor game would be fun, I'm not really ready for deity)

 

[Phillip_martin]

Japan, Babs, Persia, France, and India (1 city on island) are still with me. This should remain stable now we all have replaceable parts. I own China’s and India’s land and am gearing up for an assault on the UN for a diplo victory. Why – because I am running out of time to finish this month.

Vote will probably be between me, Japan, Babs and France and the usual trading and gifting has commenced. I love my neighbors

 

[cracker]

Thank God and Matrix for the 2nd of the month submittal deadline. I did not finish dragging this beast out until after midnight last night.

Can't say if this game will be a winner, but you will have to download the game to appreciate the final ending position.

Well over 100 elite Modern Armor

25 Guidon Bearers

close to 1300 Modern armor guarding virtually every dry land square.

Battleships out the wazoo.

Joan still wouldn't give or trade me nationalism even though I had stumbled up to robots at the pace of 40 turns/tech.

I probably should have reloacted more cities to squeeze population even higher but I was flirting within 1 to 4 tiles of domination for over 200 turns.

Found out that the AI does not recognize the ability to clear forests for the bonus shields independent of any other changes in tile production value. The AI will never clear forests on tundra to try and improve its position.

There also seems to be some AI brain damage associated with exploring the map. Even though all the terrain squares in the world seem to be known, the AI will continue exploring the black ocean untill all the black squares are eliminated. Even if there is one tiny black square in the middle of the ocean with no visible coast around it, the AI will send and exploration boat over to the black square just to make sure.

I was a bit bored but confirmed more details of the Bug that makes bombardment look even worse than it is designed to be. It is impossible to score a hit on any naval vessel in a port city. Even when you blast away all the land defenders with 40 battle ships and them kill off the redline units with cruise missles, the city will be defended by galleons or other ships that cannot possibly be hit.

Note: I was bored and using this game to test things I do not normally have time for or even consider of value.

I bombarded a city defended by a galleon only for 4 successive turns and used a total of 120 battleship attacks (240 ROF salvos) plus 20 cruise missles (60 ROF salvos) without scoring a single hit on the galleon. Galleons would be a legitimate target for both battleships and cruis missiles. Obviously the bombardment targeting system allows you to target the palace and other understroyable buildings (wonders/small wonders, granary-pyramids, barracks-SunTzus, hydro-hoover) but then makes it impossible to score a hit on these structures. It may also be impossible to score a hit on hospitals and aqueducts since these sturctures cannot be sold or destroyed from a city once they have been built.

All these bombardment flaws add substantially to the observed miss rate such that a city with a lot of these bombardment immune structures would display a ridiculously high bombardment failed rate.

Just more credibile evidence that the bombardment system in Civ3 remains as one of the biggest oops in the overall game.

 

[thefrenchzulu]

I only started this game very late. Anyone saying anything negative about Impis, don't know the game.

Unforunately I got tied down with work and will be unable to submit this game. I'm in late 1800AD's milking toward 8000points. Probably good enough for a medal, but I'm on holiday and got me priorities focussed on some other things.

Just on miking:

Found that really good milking requires lots of time. All cities needs to be manually governed. This takes lots of time. Ended up playing 3 turns per evening. Really time consuming.

 

[Zachriel]

There is an old Bakusu proverb,
Man is like a palm on the beach; moving with the wind of life.

SHAKA's FIST
http://www.zachriel.com/gotm12/

Discussion Thread
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